False Alarms
On February 1, 2005, the EAS was used to mistakenly issue an "immediate evacuation order for all of Connecticut", which contained no specific information on why it had been issued. The message was broadcast due to operator error while conducting an unannounced, but scheduled statewide test. A study conducted following the incident reported that at least 11% of residents actually saw the warning live, and that 63% of those surveyed were "a little or not at all concerned"—citing a suspicious lack of detail in the message, which a legitimate alert would include. Only 1% of those surveyed actually attempted to leave the state. Connecticut State Police did not receive any calls related to the incident. *On June 26, 2007 at 7:35 a.m. CDT, an Emergency Action Notification was accidentally issued in the state of Illinois, when a new satellite receiver at the state's EOC was accidentally connected to a live system before final internal testing of the new delivery path had been completed. The alert was followed by dead air, and then audio from designated station 720 WGN in Chicago being simulcast across almost every television and radio station in the Chicagoarea and throughout much of Illinois. A confused Spike O'Dell, host of the station's morning show at the time, was heard on-air wondering "what that beeping was all about". *On May 19, 2010, NOAA All-Hazards and CSEPP tone alert radios in the Hermiston, Oregon area, near the Umatilla Chemical Depot, were activated with an EAS alert shortly after 5 p.m. The message transmitted was for a severe thunderstorm warning, issued by the National Weather Service in Pendleton, but the transmission broadcast instead was a long period of silence, followed by a few words in Spanish. Umatilla County Emergency Management has stressed there was no emergency at the depot. *On September 3, 2016, in the wake of Tropical Storm Hermine, an alert was displayed on television calling for the immediate evacuation of the entirety of Suffolk County, abruptly ending with the sentence "This is an emergency message from." About 15 minutes after the original message was sent, the alert was re-issued with an addendum clarifying that the alert was actually calling for a voluntary evacuation of Fire Island—a barrier island of Long Island. Officials cited an error in the county's Code Red system; while the correct message was entered into the system, an error processing an abbreviated message for television resulted in the error. *On August 15, 2017 at approximately 12:25 a.m. local time, Guam stations KTWG and KSTO transmitted a civil danger warning for the island; Guam Homeland Security described the message, which interrupted programming on the stations, and was received on television by some viewers, as being an "unauthorized test" of the EAS. The incident's impact was strengthened, as North Korea had threatened the launch of ballistic missiles towards Guam only a few days beforehand. Numerous calls to 911 operators and the Department of Homeland Security were made following the broadcast. *On January 13, 2018 at approximately 8:07 a.m. local time, the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency (HI-EMA) mistakenly issued an emergency alert warning of a ballistic missile inbound threatening the region, which was claimed to be not a drill. 38 minutes later, it was announced by HI-EMA and the Honolulu Police Department that the alert was a false alarm.[68][69] The incident came amidst heightened concern over the possibility that Hawaii could be targeted by North Korean missiles (in December 2017, Hawaii tested its missile sirens for the first time since the Cold War).[70] HI-EMA administrator Vern Miyagi stated that the incident was a "mistake made during a standard procedure at the change over of a shift".